During the manufacture of a liquid crystal display device, an alignment process performed on an alignment film is indispensable. This alignment process includes a step of rubbing surfaces of the alignment films on an array substrate and a color filter substrate with a rubbing roller in a direction, so as to form grooves on the surfaces of the alignment films arranged in a direction by using the rubbing of a rubbing cloth on the rubbing roller. In this way, liquid crystal molecules of a liquid crystal layer are arranged at a predetermined angle through the alignment films.
For the above-mentioned rubbing process, the rubbing roller is indispensable. Prior to the rubbing, it is required to manufacture the rubbing roller using a cloth attachment device, and the manufacturing efficiency of the rubbing rollers directly affects the yield of the liquid crystal display device.
As shown in FIG. 1, which is a schematic view showing an existing cloth attachment device, the cloth attachment device includes a base 1, a table 2, a gantry frame 3, baffles 4 arranged at both sides of the gantry frame 3, rollers 5, a clamping unit for clamping the rollers 5, a sliding rail 7 arranged on the base 1, a to-be-attached cloth 8 arranged on the table 2, a rubber pad 9 arranged at a lower surface of the to-be-attached cloth 8, and a display 10 for displaying an attachment procedure of the rollers 5. The rollers 5 are fixed onto the gantry frame 3 through the clamping unit 6, and can rotate relative to the gantry frame 3. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the cloth is attached as follows by the cloth attachment device with such a structure. The gantry frame 3 drives the rollers 5 by the clamping unit 6 to move down onto a surface of the table 2 (e.g., position a in FIG. 2), so as to press against the to-be-attached cloth on the rubber pad 9. Next, the gantry frame 3 moves along the sliding rail 7, and meanwhile drives the rollers 5 to fittingly rotate on the to-be-attached cloth 8, so as to curl up the to-be-attached cloth 8 during the rotation (position b in FIG. 2). Then, the gantry frame 3 drives the rollers 5 by the clamping unit 6 to move up to a position c and move back to be right above an initial attachment position (position d in FIG. 2). And then, the gantry frame 3 drives the rollers 5 again by the clamping unit 6 to move down to the initial attachment position, so as to press against the rubber pad 9 and repeat the above-mentioned curling operation, thereby to attach the rubbing cloth in a better manner.
During the cloth attachment procedure, the gantry frame 3 needs to moves along the sliding rail 7, so as to drive the rollers 5, thereby to curl up the to-be-attached cloth preliminarily. Then, the rollers 5 need to move up and down, press against the rubber pad 9 and rotate on the rubber pad 9 for multiple times, so as to attach the rubbing cloth on the rollers 5 in a better manner. Hence, the gantry 3 must drive the rollers 5 to move back and forth, and move up and down continuously. However, it will take a lot of time for the back-and-forth as well as the up-and-down movements of the rollers 5, while it takes very little time to curl up the cloth. In addition, during the attachment, there exist many zero return actions, so the entire process is very complex and the operation is inconvenient.